BUt, still, that is the impression most people got of cruising. Imagine the disappointment when someone actually went on a cruise and got to their cabin and it wasn't a grand suite! Or that captain wasn't walking around the deck and having one on one conversations with everyone.

Is the Island Princess (the ship) still sailing? Or has it been retired in favor of a larger vessel?

Actually, the crew cabins on Island and Pacific Princess were quite large; the big difference was the floor was linoleum, the closets were metal lockers, there were 4-6 to a cabin, and the communal bathroom was down at the end of the hall.

Originally posted by f-mattox:
Actually, the crew cabins on Island and Pacific Princess were quite large; the big difference was the floor was linoleum, the closets were metal lockers, there were 4-6 to a cabin, and the communal bathroom was down at the end of the hall.

I just took a web course with Princess on the Love Boat series. It had some very interesting tidbits. The series ran from Sep 24, 1977-May 24 1986. The show was developed from a book written by a former Cruise Director, and the setting in the book was on the Island Princess. Most of the episodes were actually shot on the Pacific Princess. They used five different ships in the series. The original Sun, Pacific, Island, Royal, and Sky. An episode was even filmed on the Queen Mary. They only did six weeks of filming a year on the actually ships. The rest of the episodes were filmed in 20th Century Fox. The reason they filmed most at a stage set was because 1) the cabins were so small they couldn't fit the camera crew in them. 2) It took 106 cast and crew and they couldn't take up that many cabins away from the Princess paying customers.
Merrill Stubing was based on a baseball player. There were a total of 1000 Guests actors throughout the series. Charo had the most appearances with 10, Florence Henderson 9, and Artie Johnson 8. Terry Hatcher had an appearance as a Mermaid. Marion Ross married Capt S in the last show.

I admit to enjoying "The Love Boat" despite its differences from real life. Back when it first aired, I regularly babysat on Saturday nights, and made sure the kids were off to bed before it started. I didn't know it at the time, but I guess I was a cruise nut in the making!

A few years ago, the cable channel TV Land aired reruns. I would watch the first few minutes just to hear the ship's whistle. (My husband wasn't too pleased, sometimes, as he would miss the few minutes of a game or other show. )

Since we are on cruising and T.V., there is an episode of Colombo titled "Troubled Waters" that aired in February, 1975, and was filmed on the original Sun Princess on a Mexican Riviera cruise. It is availabe on DVD in "The Complete Fourth Season" collection. It's a kick to see Peter Falk without the rumpled overcoat.

She acutally is no longer sailing for them. She was sold to Brazilian operator CVC (which has chartered her multiple times before) in January and will spend the northern summer season in the Mediterranean operating cruises out of Valencia under charter by a new Spanish operator called Quail Cruises (quite an interesting name, isn't it ). Quail Cruises was reprtedly et up by former Pullmantur employees that left the company following the takeover by RCL.